(Entered in paper journal at 8:01 AM at Naidre's cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was walking through a building with my family. The building may have been like a building on a college campus. Some of my family members, probably my aunt B, uncle MB, and possibly my mother, my brother, and my cousin AR, were all behind me as we walked through a crowd of people.
We turned a corner and came up to a woman at a table. The table was stacked with cardboard boxes full of sandwiches. The woman was handing out the sandwiches for free as part of some promotional event.
My family started to shuffle past, but I stood to look at the sandwiches. Some sandwiches seemed full, with nice lettuce and tomatoes. Others looked like nothing but bread. All the sandwiches were wrapped in nice, thick, clear, plastic wrappers. I grabbed a sandwich for myself. But when I got back to my family, I handed the sandwich to one of my family members, possibly my brother.
The space we stood in was like an alcove of a gift shop or a bookshop, and was full of natural light. The crowd of people was still pretty busy.
I went back to the table to get a sandwich for myself. But as I did, my cousin AR (in a white dress, and looking maybe like she did when she was twelve years old) stood in front of me (carrying a stroller?) and told me, half-jokingly, "You didn't get a sandwich for aunt B. She's going to be mad."
At first I felt inconvenienced. I thought everybody should be getting their own sandwiches for themselves, not having me get them. Then I felt ashamed. My cousin would think I was so inconsiderate if she knew what I was thinking!
I quickly became jokey and said, " Oh!!! She's going to be mad!!! Of course I was geting her a sandwich right now." I walked behind and past my cousin, massaging her back with my knuckles quickly and vigorously as I passed. I grabbed a nice sandwich. I may have passed it to my aunt B, who may have been standing with a stroller and wearing an orange shirt.
Finally I went to grab my own sandwich. I got to the woman again. She now stood behind a cash register. She would ring open the register with each free sandwich she gave out, laying a one-dollar (or ten-dollar?) bill into the till and then pulling it back out, as if registering a sale. This worried me. I couldn't tell if now I had to pay for a sandwich, and I felt like dealing with money at this point would just clutter me up.
The woman was young, pale skinned, blonde, with pale blue eyes and a soft, roundish face. I asked for one last free sandwich. The woman pulled one out of a box for me, but then stopped. She said, "You've already taken too many free sandwiches for yourself already. The limit is three per person."
I said, "But I haven't been taking them for myself. I've been giving them to my family."
She said, "You can't prove that, and I'm not giving you any more!"
I was discouraged. I kind of slumped away.
I was about to walk through another doorway, possibly to catch up with my family, when a woman standing by a stroller yelled, "You can't do that to him! He did give the sandwiches to his family!"
The woman defending me was in the middle of saying something else when the woman behind the register cut in and yelled at me, "Fine! Here! Take your sandwich! God! But you better remember this in the future, cause I'm gonna remember you!" It was plain to me now that the woman behind the register had withheld the last sandwich simply because she was trying to bully me, and now she was pissed off that someone had called her on it.
She leaned over the cash register and held the sandwich at arm's length. I was ten feet away from her (and possibly standing behind a maroon-colored stroller), but I still leaned forward and stretched my arm out as if I could grab the sandwich from her.
I now held the sandwich. It was one of the ones with nothing in it.
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